'I am sorry for the lives that I have taken' – Boston Marathon bomber

Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev spoke in public for the first time since the April 2013 attack, just before the judge formally handed down the 21-year-old’s death sentence. He apologized to the victims and their families.

“I’d like to now apologize to the victims and survivors. I am
sorry for the lives that I have taken, for the suffering that I
have caused you, for the damage, the irreparable damage,”
Tsarnaev said in the Boston, Massachusetts courtroom on
Wednesday.

"I woudl like to now apologize to the victims to the
survivors," #Tsarnaev
says. He chokes up.

"You told us just how unbearable it was, this thing I put you
through," Tsarnaev told them, standing in the courtroom with
his hands folded in front of him.

“I am Muslim. My religion is Islam. I pray to Allah to bestow
his mercy on those affected in the bombing and their
families,” he continued in a low voice, pausing between
sentences. “I pray for your healing.”

Because Tsarnaev chose not to testify during his trial, his
remarks on Wednesday marked the first time the public was able to
hear his thoughts. After he spoke, US District Judge George A.
O’Toole officially handed down the death sentence.

"You had to forget your own humanity," O'Toole said
before making his formal pronouncement, adding that Tsarnaev was
felled by a "diabolical siren song" and that a God who
approves killing of innocents "cannot be the God of
Islam."

People will remember Tsarnaev for only the evil that he
committed, the judge noted.

“I sentence you to the penalty of death by execution,”
O’Toole said.

The judge was formally bound by the wishes of the jury, so the
hearing was a formality that allowed victims and their families
one last chance to address Tsarnaev.

Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges relating to the bombing and
subsequent shooting spree in April of this year. Of those, 17
counts were capital crimes, making him eligible for the death
penalty. In mid-May, the same jury that convicted him sentenced him to die, but he was not formally
sentenced by the judge at that time.

And that's it for today. #Tsarnaev
could be transferred to federal death row in Terra Haute at any
time. He has an automatic appeal

The judge was formally bound by the wishes of the jury, so the
hearing was a formality that allowed two dozen victims and their
families one last chance to address Tsarnaev.

"Terrorists like you do two things in this world. One, they
create mass destruction, but the second is quite
interesting," said Rebekah Gregory, who lost her left leg in
the attack. "Because do you know what mass destruction really
does? It brings people together. We are Boston strong and we are
America strong, and choosing to mess with us was a terrible
idea.

"How's that for your victim impact statement?"

"The choices that you made are despicable," said
Patricia Campbell, whose daughter, Krystle, was one of three
people killed at the Boston Marathon.

"I will never have a complete family again," said
Jennifer Rogers, the sister of Sean Collier, the slain MIT police
officer whose shooting led to a car chase and massive manhunt
days later.

"We chose love, we chose kindness, we chose peace," Bill
Richard, the father of 8-year-old Martin, who died in the attack,
said. "That is what makes us different from him."

On April 15, 2013 twin blasts, 12 seconds apart, rocked the
finish line of the storied Boston Marathon. Over 260 people were
injured, with three killed, including an eight-year-old boy. Four
days later, in the early morning hours, a Massachusetts Institute
of Technology police officer was killed and a man was carjacked,
leading law enforcement on a manhunt from Cambridge,
Massachusetts to the nearby suburb of Watertown.

By that point, officials had identified the two suspects as
Tsarnaev, then 19, and his older brother Tamerlan, 26.

In Watertown, the suspects engaged in a firefight with law
enforcement, during which Tamerlan was killed. The area was
placed on lockdown as SWAT teams from multiple local and federal
jurisdictions searched for the surviving brother. He was
eventually found hiding in a boat on a resident’s property.

At 21, Tsarnaev will become the youngest person on federal death
row when he joins the 61 current prisoners at the US Bureau of
Prison’s death row facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The defense is expected to appeal the sentence, a process that
will likely drag on for several years. If the sentence is upheld
by all subsequent courts, Tsarnaev will die via lethal injection.